All too often, the Oscars come around and you'll overhear someone at coffee or in a restaurant or in a waiting room saying, "I've barely heard of any of these movies; does anyone actually see them?"
For only the second time in the last 10 years, none of the best picture nominees _ at the time of nomination _ has grossed more than $100 million domestically. And that first time was in 2015, and that's only because "American Sniper" had just opened in wide release; it would go on to gross $346.7 million in North America.
Here's how the nine films nominated for best picture for the 89th Academy Awards have fared at the box office thus far:
"Arrival": $95.7 million
"Fences": $48.7 million
"Hacksaw Ridge": $65.5 million
"Hell or High Water": $27.0 million
"Hidden Figures": $83.7 million
"La La Land": $89.7 million
"Lion": $16.3 million
"Manchester By the Sea": $38.9 million
"Moonlight": $15.8 million
"Hidden Figures" and "La La Land" will cross the $100 million mark in the next week or two, and "Arrival" will likely get a nice post-nomination bump.
But if the goal of the 2011 decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, when it changed the rules and allowed up to 10 films to be nominated for best picture, was to be able to include more films that reflect the popular taste, then that hasn't quite panned out this year.
